


Idol Thieves

by Biffhofosho



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, F/M, Heist, Multichapter, Novel, OT7, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-28 12:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30139416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biffhofosho/pseuds/Biffhofosho
Summary: Monsta X isn’t just an international pop sensation, and the men in it aren’t regular idols. With a hunger for adventure and a taste for the thrill, they’ll use their charm, charisma, and incredible talents to take whatever they want. Just when they thought they were out of the heist business for good, one last job comes along they can’t turn down. Only problem is they can’t do it alone.Features all seven globe-trotting, thieving, romancing, fun-loving boys doing what they do best—stealing hearts.
Relationships: Lee Hoseok | Wonho/Original Female Character(s), Son Hyunwoo | Shownu & Original Character(s), Yoo Kihyun & Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is most literally a labor of love. I started writing this story TWO YEARS AGO for my very best friend and soup snake as a Christmas present. It ballooned out of control almost immediately, and after all this time (and Wonho’s departure--I’m sobbing) , I’m ready to share it. It’s an alternate universe (although we’re secretly convinced it’s probably happening in real time here) full of adventure, romance, and some sexy good times. We’re also pretty sure MX knows about it even though it’s never been published. I will be publishing chapters fairly regularly, so enjoy the ride (it’s a long one).

“Really? So no one else is going to say it?” Changkyun blurted through the silence, his arms firmly stacked across his chest. “Fine. Why the hell are we back in the Smugglers’ Den?”

Jooheon rolled his eyes. “After all these years, you’re still on that? It’s the Blueprint Room. Always has been, always will be. End of story.”

“I thought it was the Tigers’ Lair?” Minhyuk mused as he tapped his chin.

“We’re getting off topic,” Shownu redirected.

“Yeah, what was so important you woke me up at the crack of noon?” garbled Hyungwon through a long yawn.

Kihyun smirked as he took his seat at the end of the long table and steepled his fingers. He peered over his black-rimmed glasses at each of the members—a spectrum running through everything from confusion to worry to exhaustion.

“I would have thought that would be obvious. We have another job.”

As the rest of the team took Kihyun’s cue and settled in around the table, Minhyuk quirked an eyebrow. “I thought the last job was the last job?”

“Yeah. What happened to idol retirement?” asked Jooheon.

“Do I get to wear leather?” Wonho asked, and Minhyuk elbowed him. “What?”

“It’s simple, boys,” Kihyun continued. “I got a call. Someone high-powered, someone of impeccable taste. Someone who knows who we were and who we can still be. And he’s got a job. Sure, he’s offering a lot of money, but we all know that’s not what this is about—maybe in the beginning, but not for a long time.”

The men watched Kihyun’s every move, from the perceptive narrow of his eyes to the subtle tilt of his head. When the boss spoke, they listened—especially with Shownu propped coolly against the wall behind him.

“Last time, we promised you retirement,” Kihyun added with a nod back to his shadowy enforcer. “Since then, idol life’s been good to us. Never in one place long enough to get bored. New cities, new adventures—”

“New women,” offered Changkyun to a chorus of sighs.

Undeterred, Kihyun said, “Point is, we’ve got everything we could want.”

“Yeah, so why are we back in the Plot Box?” Hyungwon said.

“Honestly, where do you get these horrible names?” Shownu grumbled, his hand rubbing his forehead.

Kihyun tilted his head just a touch. “We’re back because I know it’s not enough. For any of us. San Francisco taught us that.”

The room fell silent.

After a long moment, Minhyuk crossed his arms. “Fine, but I'm not going as Dior again.”

“Oh, come on,” prodded Jooheon, “you looked so cute in that skirt. And we can't put Hyungwon in it. It’s like a rubber band around his waist.”

“Ha ha,” deadpanned the string bean.

“Forget it,” Minhyuk insisted. “The last mark got too handsy and almost blew my cover. What about Hoseok? He's pretty.”

“Thank you,” Wonho beamed.

Changkyun rolled his eyes. “What about him? He's built like an Olympic shot-putter. Who's going to hit on that chick?”

Wonho shrugged. “If the skirt's leather—”

Changkyun and Jooheon dropped their heads on the table.

From his head seat, Kihyun smiled. He had known his team would agree to do the job—they had never turned one down—but he hadn't expected them to be so eager. He glanced over his shoulder to his muscular backup, and Shownu seemed to be waiting for him. “Just like old times.”

Shownu nodded. “Then you know what's coming.”

_Trouble_.

Kihyun didn't need to say it.

He smiled again before he circled the table and patted Minhyuk on the shoulder. “Don’t dust off your heels just yet, Dior. I have contractors on standby.”

Hyungwon took a long sip from his smoothie. “Outsiders?”

“An insurance policy,” Kihyun clarified. “The client’s, not mine.”

“Who’s the client?” asked Minhyuk.

Their leader shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I only spoke with an emissary.”

Jooheon threw both hands in the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Why in the hell would we work for somebody we don’t even know? The guy could be a cop or a Dispatch journalist looking to break a huge story or, shit, even a kkangpae.”

Shownu glowered at them. “Do you honestly think we wouldn’t have ensured at least that much?”

Jooheon mumbled an apology, but worried dimples still etched his cheeks.

“It’s true,” Kihyun replied gently, “the client demands total anonymity for the job, but we know enough to protect ourselves and our livelihoods. This job is important to him, important enough that he’s sending two of his best people to assist.”

Wonho shook his head and sighed, wishing for the first time in a long time that he hadn’t conceded the leadership position to Kihyun and Shownu so easily. “I don’t know. This doesn’t sound like a good idea. For years, it’s just been us. We know everything about each other. The good, the bad, and the Minhyuk—”

“Hey, why are you looking at me!” the visual shouted.

“—but we don’t know anything about these outsiders or the man they work for? They could be here to spy on us, expose us, or worse.”

“What’s worse?” Hyungwon asked.

“No.Mercy,” Jooheon whispered softly, and everyone’s heads hung for a long moment of silence.

Though they had always known exactly what the outcome of the survival show would be, in the end, their hardest task had been fighting to keep the hopefuls out of their hearts as they made their way ruthlessly to victory. It had been pointless. Their competition turned out to be a bunch of talented, soft-hearted kids who, in spite of their every effort to compartmentalize, became family. Each elimination was a cut to the chest, and it was the first time the clan had learned that the price of success was also crushing loss.

Kihyun cleared his throat softly, and the boys knew it was safe to show their faces again.

“This time is different. There won’t be time for anything other than the job. Besides, Hyunwoo vetted our new comrades personally.”

“Thoroughly,” their stalwart hyung added.

If Shownu said it, there was hardly a surer guarantee. The furrowed brows eased but the frowns remained.

“Now, now, boys, they're not here for profit or to get in our way. Besides, we're going to need every hand on deck for this job.”

“Since when do we need help completing a job?” Changkyun groused.

Kihyun tapped a few buttons on his phone before their smart table blazed to life beneath them with an aerial shot of a stadium aglow with the fireflies of light sticks. Screams and chants resonated off the cold steel rafters of their lair and vibrated in their chests.

_Monsta X! Monsta X!_

With a smile, he said, “Aren’t you forgetting something? We’re famous now. That’ll get us in most doors, but it also means that all eyes will be on us all the time. It nearly cost us the San Francisco job.”

“Even monkeys fall from trees. We got the diamonds, didn't we?” Changkyun retorted.

“Yeah,” Hyungwon seconded, “the bathroom cover worked okay.”

“‘Okay?’ Now the whole world thinks Hyunwoo has tummy troubles,” snickered Wonho. From the other end of the table, their hyung glowered and the smile disappeared from everyone’s faces. More soberly, Wonho added, “Kihyun’s right. The waitress knew who we were, and she blogged the whole thing to the second.”

“My point, boys, is that we're getting sloppy,” Kihyun clarified as he stopped their performance video and pushed back from his seat. “We all know San Fran was a training exercise. A couple of two-bit, newbie blood diamond smugglers? That should have been a two-thirty-flat job from get-in to getaway. Instead, it took an entire lunch, a messy cover-up fan photoshoot, and, at best, we got away with barely enough to feed that village for a month.”

As the boys wallowed once again in their lackluster final heist, their leader circled the table, his fingers tracing the back of his teammates' chairs. “Remember when we first met? Remember everything we had to go through to get here? No one would say it wasn't worth it. And I don't know about you guys, but as much as I love being Monsta X, I miss when we were just The Tribe, when the only things that mattered were our freedom and our brotherhood.”

They had been together so long, suffered every trial and tribulation so united, that their memories synchronized into the same zoetrope of dark alleys lit by fires, car chases through downpours, and celebrations drowned in a gallon of soju. It was a beautiful, muddled mess, just like their time together.

Wonho tipped back in his chair, an easy smile on his face as he watched Kihyun. “So, what's the job, boss?”

“Just about the only thing that can convince you guys to leave retirement again: a real challenge. Damn near impossible, if I’m being realistic.”

Hyungwon raised his eyebrows. “Isn't that what you said about No.Mercy? And we know how that turned out.”

Kihyun shook his head. “Diamond heists, yacht theft, rigging a national broadcast? Consider those an audition. We'll need everything we’ve learned and more for this con.”

“No.Mercy was child's play?” Jooheon said, wounded.

Kihyun squeezed his friend’s shoulders reassuringly. “Of course not. It was carefully orchestrated and flawlessly executed by all of you, but that plan was over a year in the making. For this job, we have one month.”

“Twenty-eight days to be exact,” Shownu amended. The group waited, and when no explanation came from their leader, Shownu added, “An art heist.”

Hyungwon sagged down onto the table, his eyes drifting shut. “You woke me up to steal a painting? We stole a three billion-won yacht. Isn’t this a little below our pay grade?”

“We don’t get paid anything for these stunts,” Changkyun said as he rapped a knuckle on his neighbor’s head.

“Since when is it about the price tag?” Wonho continued to scold, and Hyungwon hid his pout behind another sip of his drink. “We’ve only ever done this for two reasons—”

“Justice and righteousness,” Minhyuk answered with a proud beam and a V for victory, and Jooheon couldn’t resist pinching the apple of his friend’s cheek.

“Maybe three,” added Changkyun. “An adrenaline rush.”

The group shared a smirk. No arguments there.

“Okay, but even if it sounds like fun, you know we’re on the verge of another comeback, and you want us to do more work?”

“Forgive our turtle, boss,” Minhyuk soothed. “You know how he gets when you wake him up from a nap.”

Kihyun paid it no mind—he was in too good of a mood. Despite Hyungwon’s lazy attempts at opposition, Kihyun knew his boys still kindled the same spark they had since childhood; he just needed a little more accelerant.

He brought up another video on the table, this time of their set at the San Francisco Jingleball. A smirk buoyed his cheek as he felt their pulse-pounding race to the arena anew, all of them still wearing their heist clothes. Wonho hadn’t even bothered to change his gloves, and cheeky Minhyuk had flaunted their haul with a stolen diamond in his ear.

He let their first song play at full volume, but instead of watching their performance, he watched his team. Smiles, wide eyes, slow nods. It was all coming together. He lowered the volume before the second song took over and said, “Remember this? If you could describe it in one word, what word would you pick?”

“Fire,” Jooheon answered immediately.

“Exactly!” Kihyun trumpeted with an emphatic slap of his palms against the table. “That job was just what we needed to re-energize ourselves. It didn’t matter that we were physically and emotionally drained. It didn’t matter that we were nine thousand kilometers from home. We were on fire again.”

“Yeah, but we're not just talking some one-day sugar rush,” Wonho said. “You're talking about full-blown months of planning.”

“Twenty-eight days,” Shownu reminded again.

“Fine, 28 days, right before a comeback.”

“Exactly,” Kihyun said again, this time with the perfect tinge of an impending epiphany. “A job like this could change everything for us. I know how hard you’ve all been working to make this our greatest comeback ever, but we’re at our best when we’re smashing through our limits. I need you all to remember that over the next few minutes.”

Wonho narrowed his eyes. “I take it our limits are about to be tested?”

“The clock moves whether or not you’re ready for it,” Shownu added rather darkly.

“I’m always ready!” said Minhyuk with a fist raised. “Hwaiting!”

Shownu’s phone buzzed, and all heads shot to him while Kihyun smiled at his team. “Good.”

“I don’t like this,” Jooheon muttered.

Kihyun pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and leveled his eyes at the door. “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t met them either.”

“That makes me feel way worse!”

Shownu paused the video on the table and headed up the stairs to the landing. With a stern look back at his boys, he warned, “Be on your best behavior. Our guests are here.”


	2. Chapter Two

The whole room held its breath as Shownu opened the door to reveal two women. An atomic explosion would have garnered less shock.

Excepting the stone-faced Shownu and the one-eyebrow-raised Kihyun, every member was gobsmacked. It wasn’t just the fact that the “subcontractors” weren’t men or even Korean, for that matter; it was everything else.

The short one waved enthusiastically from her tiptoes, her pretty cherub face all smiles and high, rosy cheekbones. The aloof giantess beside her didn't even venture a glance up from her phone, her face a question mark behind a voluminous veil of silver waves.

The boys worked frantically to size them up, cataloging every detail as though they could uncover their motives on first impression, but it was like a cipher without a key. Where one wore an ironic sweatshirt with a pink hood to cradle her strawberry locks, the other wore a black leather jacket and pants accessorized with a thigh holster on each leg.

Kihyun could practically hear the alarm bells ringing in his team’s heads.

“This is the hired help?” quipped Changkyun with one seriously raised brow.

“I wouldn't do that,” cautioned the tall woman from behind the little black rectangle.

Nobody was exactly sure what “that” was, and making matters worse, since no one could see her face, it gave a disembodied quality to her voice. Jooheon whirled around as though she had somehow materialized behind him, Minhyuk shivered, and everything ground to a screeching halt once again.

“Don't mind Wally,” the short one said, shattering the silence with another friendly grin. “She's just extra salty today because our boss liked my Instagram pic but not hers.”

Wally cursed under her breath but said nothing further.

“Oh good,” beamed Minhyuk, “you speak Korean.”

With an enthusiastic nod, the blonde said, “Sure do! And Danish and English and Mandarin and Hindi. My German is conversational at best, but Wally's fluent, and she's got us covered if we need Japanese or Dutch.”

“Why would we— Who the hell are you people?” Jooheon muttered.

“Your new teammates! We're happy to be here.”

“Hwaiting,” Wally grumbled unconvincingly.

“I’m Hannah, and this is my best friend-slash-soulmate, Wally,” the short one said with a bow.

Changkyun fluffed his bangs and leaned back in his chair as his eyes slid over to the muscly silent sentry sharing the landing with the ladies. “You could have warned us, hyung.”

“It was more fun this way,” Shownu replied with a sly uptick at the corner of his mouth.

Jooheon studied the two guests for a minute, his tongue poking through his lips. “I thought you said these were the client’s best men? They don't look like men to me.”

“I have found that generally the best man for the job is a woman,” Wally said, yet again without so much as a glance up.

“What my colleague _means_ to say,” chirped Hannah, “is that we are looking forward to working with all of you to bring home our boss’s special assignment.”

Shownu gestured down the stairs, and the women headed down with him in tow. The boys’ confusion only intensified when the trio reached the bottom. Hannah was tiny, closer to a full foot shorter than her partner, who was almost as tall as Shownu. It was hard to picture either woman as a criminal kingpin’s right-hand-man, though Wally’s thigh holsters helped her case.

Hannah strode toward the head of the table and extended her hand. “Kihyun, right? We spoke over the phone. It's nice to formally meet you.”

Though he was seated, she was barely taller than Kihyun was. His eyes drifted up to hers and locked on until, from the other side of the room, Wally cleared her throat. Both of them looked away sheepishly, the natural pink on Hannah’s cheek deepening a shade. Kihyun realized her hand was still out and he hurried to take it. The warmth of their connection was instantaneous, almost to the point where he had to let go, but he couldn't. Another throat clear, this time from Shownu, and the pair broke apart.

The pink was now red, and Hannah wiped her cheeks uselessly. She opted for the strong man beside her colleague next. “And you must be the one who's been trying to research us. How'd it go?”

“Unproductive,” Shownu replied.

“Oh good, I’m so relieved,” she said, clutching her heart. “It’s like proofreading, ja? You look at something a thousand times and think you’ve caught everything, but on the first go, someone finds a mistake.”

“Wait,” Jooheon hissed at Kihyun, “I thought you said Shownu thoroughly vetted them?”

“He did. Which just proves our client’s point—they’re that good.”

“That’s not vetting!”

Kihyun smiled—Jooheon’s dimples were always at their deepest when he was angry. “It’ll be fine.”

Back at the head of the room, Hannah stood at her full height, every vertebra stacked perfectly as she squared off to Shownu, and despite being more than a foot shorter than he was, somehow they matched up. One finger touched her lip as she sized up the sentry.

“So, would you rather we call you Shownu or Hyunwoo?” When he didn’t answer quickly enough, she added, “Tell you what, it'll be Shownu for now until we're friends. Deal?”

Satisfied with the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, Hannah faced the rest of the boys, her hazel eyes widening to near cartoonish proportions. Breathlessly, she mumbled, “Wow, you're even more handsome in real life than you are on TV.”

“Eh,” Wally shrugged, still clicking away.

Hannah waved dismissively to her friend behind her. “I know this whole thing must be pretty weird for you guys, but trust me, Wally and I have been helping outfits like yours for years.”

“I doubt you’ve met anyone like us before,” trumpeted Changkyun.

“You’d be surprised. You’re not our firsts.” Hannah caught Kihyun’s eyes and flushed before she laughed it off. “Our first idols, I mean. Of course, we’ve never met an entire group of idol thieves.”

She chuckled at her own pun while Wally groaned.

“Anyway, what I mean to say is that we can be the perfect accessories here. Wal and I are usually a two-person operation, so between us, we’ve sort of dabbled in everything.”

“Do you have any specialties?” asked Jooheon.

Hannah nodded and began counting on her hand. “Well, there’s explosives, reconnaissance, things that go boom, a little light hacking, safecracking, understanding of basic electrical engineering, and making new friends. Oh, and nitroglycerin.”

The boys exchanged looks, and after a moment, Hyungwon said, “And your friend?”

Wally thumbed through another page on her phone, but when Hannah didn’t answer for her as expected, she sighed. “My specialty is reducing the patriarchy to smoldering, fleshy rubble.”

Minhyuk swallowed hard.

Changkyun, however, lifted an eyebrow. “I am both terrified and a—”

“If you like those beautiful lips of yours, don't finish that sentence,” Wally commanded, and Changkyun’s mouth snapped shut.

“How can her threats be so convincing when she doesn't even look at you?” Minhyuk whispered.

“Scary,” Jooheon agreed as a shiver shimmied down his spine and Minhyuk hugged his friend’s shoulders.

From behind her screen, Wally smirked, and though it was gone in a flash, Hannah caught it. She nudged her partner. “Now we’re having fun, ja?”

“Shut it.”

Meanwhile, Changkyun rubbed his lower lip with his thumb as he mused. “She said my lips were beautiful.”

“Jja jeung na! Have you learned nothing, man?” Minhyuk hissed as he gripped his maknae by the collar, but it did not shake the rapper from his reverie.

Wonho, however, remained stone-faced and narrow-eyed. He studied both women carefully, taking in every inch of the happy-go-lucky sprite and her icy companion.

From the moment she had descended the stairs, Hannah was animated, her arms gesticulating wildly like she was either signaling for help on a desert island or landing an aircraft, but it had the strange effect of making her seem much larger than her pocket-sized frame allowed. With every windmill of her arms—and there were a great many—her hoodie and tank top rode up, flashing snippets of snow-white tummy, but she was always quick to jerk it back down. Her smile had an easy charm, a lot like Minhyuk’s, wide and bright and completely disarming, and the excited lilt of her voice had even Wonho doubting his own doubts about the outsiders’ presence.

But then his eyes slid to the leather anchor at the other end of the room. Whereas Hannah had just about completed two turns around the table in the last ten minutes, Wally hadn’t budged from her cross-legged lean against the wall. And that damned cell phone. Wonho couldn’t get a good look at her face behind her silver curtain of hair and her black rectangle of spite. It chafed for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint.

And, of course, there were the thigh holsters.

One was empty, but something sparkly protruded from the other, a weapon of some kind. She was too far away to tell what it was, but Wonho knew she couldn’t possibly have walked here like that, and he found his mind wandering to where she might have hidden it during her trip.

Wally’s eyes flicked up, and for an eternity—or maybe it was a split second—their gazes met. Brown, her eyes were brown. And very, very annoyed.

Wonho cleared his throat and looked away. Even Shownu seemed to have his worries. He leaned a comfortable distance down the wall from her, stoic as ever, but Wonho didn’t miss the quick flicks of the guardian’s eyes as he tried to catch a glimpse of what was so enrapturing on that screen.

“So,” Hyungwon said slowly, “you’re accessories, huh?”

“You look like mercenaries to me,” Wonho said at last. He stole another glance at Wally, but she didn’t look back.

Hannah shook her head. “We prefer ‘subcontractor.’”

“No, _you_ prefer that. I prefer ‘mercenary,’” her partner corrected.

Hyungwon leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He narrowed his eyes at the ladies, but it was hard to tell if it was suspicion or just the next oncoming nap. “What's your story? How did you two meet?”

Wally's fingers whizzed across her phone as she answered, “We met online.”

“Aw,” cooed Jooheon dramatically. “Were you blogging your feelings?”

“Dark web, actually. Hannah was selling this incredible custom TenPoint Nitro X crossbow tricked out with wicked CenterPunch broadheads and a thermal tracker scope and the most adorable hand-drawn Valkyrie decal—” Wally felt that traitorous tug at the corner of her lips before she immediately returned to the comfort of apathy and pirated WiFi and added curtly, “We traded weapons and then war stories.”

“And then?” pressed Changkyun.

“Then we became best internet friends forever!” Hannah declared as she leapt to wrap her arms around Wally’s neck, knocking her friend off balance. Even the leather-wrapped iceberg nuzzled into the crook of her friend’s elbow; the affection was oddly terrifying.

“Who are these people?” whispered Jooheon.

Minhyuk pursed his lips. “How does a fluffy bunny become mercenaries with a wild boar?”

Hannah gaped. “Did you seriously call my knife-wielding hellcat a wild boar?”

“Did you seriously call my volatile maestro a fluffy bunny?” Wally snapped as she dropped her phone into her spare holster.

Each boy stiffened, Shownu's hand moving to his back pocket and Jooheon rising to his feet.

“Show ‘em, bae,” Wally directed.

Her rosy cheeks brightening further, Hannah unzipped her hoodie to reveal dozens of capsules and vials cushioned in individual sleeves in the lining.

Jooheon squinted. “What are those? Drugs?”

Hannah shook her head. “Please. Our drug of choice is adrenaline. Næ, these are just explosives.”

A chorus of squealing metal ripped through the air as the boys flattened against the walls.

Wide awake now, Hyungwon wheezed, “Dynamite? You brought dynamite into the Plot Box?”

“Blueprint Room,” Jooheon corrected.

“Are you both serious right now?” Shownu hissed.

Jooheon shrugged. “If we’re going to blow up, he should at least get it right.”

“Jooheon’s right,” Hannah laughed as she plucked a vial from its cradle. “I mean, I don’t know about the blueprint thing, but dynamite is _so_ last century. We’ve got tetrasulfur tetranitride, Tannerite, TNT, some PETN, and a little TATP because I like to walk on the wild side. You never can tell what you’re going to need, ja-da?”

The boys remained pressed along the opposite wall, seven pairs of eyes hyper-focused on the vial’s deceptive lack of color. It could have been sugar or salt or—judging from the blithe smile on Hannah’s face—even crafting glitter, but instead it was…

“RDX. Never leave home without her.”

“Remind me never to hug her,” Minhyuk whispered.

With a dramatic sigh, Wally sauntered over to the abandoned table and plopped down, feet up and phone still in hand. “This isn’t a date, you know. Let’s knock the bastard off. We only have 28 days until heisted as.”

“Twenty-eight days,” Shownu repeated with the hint of a vindicated smile, despite the lingering threat of detonation.

Hannah returned his smile as she tucked away the RDX and zipped up her hoodie, joining her best friend.

“Heisted is?” Minhyuk mumbled as he tried to decipher Wally’s random pepperings of heavily accented English.

Wonho growled as he grabbed the seat cattycorner to Wally, Minhyuk following behind his broad shoulders in case he needed a shield. “Why does everyone keep repeating ‘28 days’ like we’ve never completed an op? The things we should be worried about are the unstable pyrotechnic and the surly phone addict who can’t even bother to pay attention.”

In a flash, Wally's phone vanished, replaced with a Swiss Army knife, blade waggling at the boys across the table. "Don't think for one fraction of a fraction of a second that I don't see everything that goes on around me, pretty boy. The phone? A decoy. Easiest way to get marks to drop their guard when they think I'm not looking. Like your maknae puppy licking his lips every time Hannah combs a knot out of her hair, or your dad down there narrowing his eyes at your mom every time our partnership gets forced down your throats. Or you, One-Ho, staring at my thighs."

“That’s not—” Wonho protested, but she cut him off as she snapped the blade closed, flipped up the nail file, and began smoothing her edges.

Wally kicked up onto the back two legs of her chair and added, "You boys better get your emotions on lockdown. Hannah and I don't do sloppy work. Neither will you."

Minhyuk released his grip on Wonho’s shoulders and bent down to whisper in his ear, “Please don’t insult the nice lady hording explosives in her shirt.”

But it wasn’t the RDX Wonho was worried about anymore.

“So now that the Spanish Inquisition is over and we're all besties and trust each other implicitly, let's plan this job!” Hannah said and punctuated it with a fist pump. She seemed to ignore the fact that no one had taken the seat next to her, and she turned to face their boss on the other side of the room. “Has your team been briefed about the mission?”

“Not in detail,” Kihyun answered.

“Awesome! Because I brought visual aids.” Hannah mirrored her phone screen onto the tabletop. A sepia-toned photo of a painting filled the giant conference room table and magnified images of Joseon-era women flying a kite beside a little stream, smiles on their faces and skirts hiked up around their knees. Someone had festooned the corners of the photo with dancing okay-hands and heart-eyed emojis.

“How did you get access to our—” Kihyun stuttered with a helpless look back to his shadow leader for clarity. Shownu simply shrugged.

Hannah tapped the tabletop. “This is Shin Yun-bok’s _Freedom Promised by a Summer Wind_. Crazy beautiful, isn’t it? As you know, most of his works hang in museums, but this one was in a private collection until the Korean War when it was stolen, which is why this picture is so damn grainy. This was the last time it was seen. Until now.”

She swiped to another slide, this one of a solitary castle squatting high on a forested hill above a red-roofed town, all surrounded with a frame of bright red arrows and money bag emojis.

“Our boss has intel that the painting will be resurfacing next month at a black-market auction in Germany hosted by brother and sister masterminds Rolf and Arabella von Graf. Our job is simple: grab it and go.”

"Oh, is that all?" Hyungwon said sarcastically, but Hannah, apparently, was immune to it.

“Yup! That’s it!”

Hannah concluded her little presentation with an explosion sound, which sent every man stumbling backward—Jooheon out of his chair completely—and a bunch of diamond and heart emojis framing a sunshiny picture of Wally and Hannah throwing the V sign in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace. Wally glanced over the lip of her phone and sighed.

After Hyungwon helped right Jooheon, he hesitantly scooted back to the table, his eyes narrowed. “Why doesn't your boss just buy it?”

“Because he's not a scum-sucking mafioso,” Wally spat. “He's one of the best people on this god-forsaken planet, and he doesn’t belong in the bowels of society.”

“And—” Hannah interrupted, reeling back her friend, “— _and_ it was stolen from _his_ family, so we're going to steal it back. He shouldn't have to pay for something that’s rightfully his, ja?”

Changkyun shrugged one shoulder. “What about us? What do we get out of this deal?”

“Everything else, of course,” Hannah answered matter-of-factly.

Kihyun pulled out the chair next to Hannah, and everyone’s eyes shot to him, then the chair, then to Hannah’s hoodie. He offered a confident smile that did little to soften the worry, but Hannah brightened considerably as she said, “Word on the street is this private auction will feature stolen diamonds, art, and black-market technology. And you can take it all.”

Jooheon crossed his arms and shot her a nod of challenge. “We don't do jobs for the money.”

With a smile, Hannah replied, “We know. Which is why our boss offered you double what he would have offered the other contractor. He was a big fan of the youth center you built in Bogwang-dong.”

“He knew about that?” Hyungwon asked.

“Oh, he’s well-informed about many things.”

“I don’t see anything about this painting online,” Changkyun said.

“You wouldn’t. I scrubbed the records. Can’t have people tying it back to the head honcho, ja?”

Jooheon tried to remain unimpressed. “You’re telling me he just wants one lousy painting so he can decorate his own Blueprint Room with it? I don’t buy it. What’s really in it for him?”

Hannah just smiled. “That’s what he said, so that’s good enough for us. We gave up asking those other questions a long time ago. You rarely get an answer.”

“But somehow he makes enough that he keeps two mercenaries on staff?”

“It’s not just art theft we do. We do risk assessment, surveillance, protection—”

“Protection?” interrupted Hyungwon with a skeptical look at the tiny woman.

From her laid-back position, Wally said, “Nobody questions a pretty woman on a man’s arm, so they never see the gun barrel until it’s too late.”

Minhyuk stole a quick sip of Hyungwon’s drink and said, “That checks out.”

“How do we get in?” Wonho redirected.

“So, great news. That's the easy part for you,” Hannah said. “You're the showpiece of the public auction.”

“What?” the boys chorused.

“Highest bidder gets a private Monsta X concert,” Kihyun clarified.

“No way,” Jooheon balked as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I'm not performing for a Nazi.”

“It is kind of creepy thinking that there could be mafioso Monbebe...” Hyungwon trailed off.

Hannah smiled at the tall turtle. “No worries, my friend. The public auction is totally real with actual normal humans and everything. The creepy part is that the entire time it’s going on, the black-market auction will be held right below it. Like the Upside Down.”

“What better cover for an illegal auction than a legal one?” Shownu said.

Minhyuk raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but if they’re going on simultaneously, how can we help you?”

“What? You want us to figure out everything for you?” Wally groused.

“You know we don’t need you, right?” Wonho informed with a piercing stare at the mercenary.

She rolled her eyes. “And how exactly is a group of tenderhearted international darlings going to score an invitation to a slit-your-brother's-throat-to-win black-market auction? No, you leave that to me. Hannah will coordinate recon and get away.”

“Uh, actually,” Hyungwon hedged as he sat up to his full height, “getaways are kind of what I do here.”

“Is that so?” Wally replied with a raised eyebrow and her fingers in an L under her chin.

There was a long silence before he replied, “Well, yeah.” And more softly: “I like fast cars.”

“Can I at least ride shotgun?” Hannah asked.

“I guess, if you don’t line your clothes with TNT.” The pair exchanged smiles, however awkward they were.

Wonho narrowed his eyes at the silver-haired woman who was feeling more like a nemesis and less like an ally every second. Through tight lips, he said, “This is not the way we do things.”

“Really, broad shoulders?” Wally said, crossing one long leg over the other. “Enlighten me.”

Kihyun leaned forward, but Shownu clamped a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. “Let them figure it out.”

Wonho began counting on his fingers. “For starters, we don’t bulldoze over each other in here. We listen to other people’s ideas, and we certainly don’t spend the entire time insulting them.”

“Is it an insult if it’s true? I’m sorry if I called you ‘pretty boy’ and ‘broad shoulders,’ and I told that one over there he had nice lips. How are any of those an insult?”

“You’ve figured out a way,” Wonho griped.

“‘That one over there’?” Changkyun repeated dejectedly, and Minhyuk rubbed his back to console him.

“At least she said it’s true? You do have nice lips,” soothed the visual.

Neither Wally nor Wonho seemed to notice anyone else in the room, as both were snarling across the table over the picture of Wally’s cheesy grin.

“Our little two-woman operation has been closing jobs for longer than you've been waxing,” she retorted. “If you just follow our lead, you’ll get everything you want and we’ll be on our way. You can go back to doing… whatever it is you do when you’re not playing Cops and Robbers in your basement fort. Questions?”

Indignant as ever, Wonho replied, “Just one. If you're so great, why did your boss hire us? I’ll bet he likes our Instagram posts.”

Wally's fist knotted, but before she could launch out of her seat, Hannah patted her knee and sang, “I think we can all agree that this is going much better than expected.”

Everyone, including Wally, gaped at her.

“I mean, look at how much we have in common. Hyungwon likes fast cars and so do I. Wally and

Wonho both like arguing and leather pants. We’re practically family already.”

After a moment, Minhyuk nodded slowly and joined Hannah’s side—if rather gingerly—and the two peacemakers from both parties formed a united front of affability. He went to put a hand on her shoulder but then remembered what lurked beneath its deceptively cozy fabric. Still, he said, “Hannah's right. We’re more alike than different in the end, and we’re both on the same deadline, yeah? So arguing just wastes time.”

“Twenty-eight days,” Shownu reminded, and the whole room moaned.

“A month doesn't give us very much time,” Changkyun said.

Still salty, Wally grumbled, “If you can't plan an art heist in a month, I don't know what we're doing here.”

“Please,” the rapper retorted. “Don't act like you could do any better.”

“I don't have to act. I _have_ done better. Hannah and I once robbed the Egyptian Museum on a whim.”

Hannah gripped Wally’s forearm and stared at her. “Bae, is this sass still about your Insta? You know he only does that shit because it riles you up.”

Wally shook her friend off and jammed her arms stiffly across her chest. “That's not— I'm not— Whatever. But _since_ you brought it up, I’ll have you know that you can only get that shot by repelling down to the 105th floor of Lotte World Tower with a hundred pounds of gold brick in your backpack. It deserved more likes.”

“Well, at least _one_ more,” Hannah jabbed before she got an actual jab in the ribs from her bestie. She surrendered and turned her attention back to the group.

“Okay, this might be a good stopping point for today. I mean, I know we only have 28 days—” Hannah tossed a pointed look to Shownu, who gave her the smallest hint of a smile. “—but this arrangement is all new for you guys. My girl and I’ve found that things always go much smoother the second day, so let’s try this again tomorrow.”

She swiped up Monsta X’s shared calendar on the table and hunched over as she reviewed it.

“How does she keep breaking my encryptions?” Changkyun exclaimed.

Hannah didn’t even blink as she zoomed in on the date she wanted. “Looks like you’re pretty wide open in the morning. Let’s take the night and let it marinate. Meet back here first thing?”

Jooheon’s brow scrunched. “Marinate?”

“Yeah. Lots of great flavors I’m seeing in here. I know it doesn’t seem like we all go together, but I think by the time all’s said and done, we’re going to make a delicious team—like brunede kartofler.”

“I don’t know what that is,” complained Changkyun.

“I don’t even know how to _say_ it,” Jooheon agreed.

“Caramel potatoes,” Wally answered once again from behind her phone.

Changkyun stuck out his tongue. “That sounds like a thing I don’t want.”

“I’ll make you some. They’re great,” Hannah promised, but the maknae shook his head.

“Thank you for the offer, but _please_ don’t trouble yourself.”

Wally slipped her phone back into its holster and leveled a rigid finger at the rapper’s face. “You will eat the tokens of friendship my partner bestows upon you, and you will like them.”

“You aren’t in charge of our diets!” Wonho yelled.

“I am now!”

“Says who?”

“Says my boss and yours!”

Hannah joined Kihyun’s side at the edge of the room, watching the black-haired idol and white-haired merc turn redder and redder as they shouted over each other. As the pair shared a smirk at the verbal joust in front of them, Hannah bumped her shoulder against him. “This is going to be a spicy marinade. I like it.”

With a confused smile and a shoulder bump back, he replied, “Your metaphors are pretty weird, seonsaengnim, but maybe you’re right. We can get this to work.”

Kihyun thumped his hands on the table, and everyone startled, Wonho and Wally falling back into their seats wide-eyed with their fingers still pointed in each other’s faces. “Listen up, you misfits. Tomorrow, you are to report back here at 0900.”

General whining—mostly from Hyungwon—broke out, but Shownu silenced them with his famous shoulder flex and a throat clear.

Kihyun patted his friend on his broad back and took the helm at the table. “It is better to lift together, even when it is a blank sheet of paper, as they say. It’s clear that neither of us can do this job separately—maybe if we had a year or more to plan, but we don’t—so in the spirit of teamwork, how about a little exhibition of what each of us does best? That should put an end to the arguments, okay?”

He stared hard at Wally and Wonho, and both released a reluctant sigh simultaneously.

Jooheon raised his hand. “What if we’re the best at everything?”

Shownu cleared his throat again, and Jooheon dropped his hand. “0900. Everyone, be on time.”

Hannah glanced around the space. It was a small concrete basement with one grimy glass block window ten feet up for natural light. A single fluorescent light fixture buzzed overhead, illuminating dust bunnies, cobwebs, and the only furniture in the room, the multimedia table and a handful of chairs. She clucked her tongue.

“Not much room to showcase in here. Where do you want to do this?”

“We could—” Kihyun started.

Without ceremony, Wally wrenched open a locked metal door in the corner of the room. “What's in here?”

The boys rushed in immediately, pushing past her to fan around the space. Eyebrow raised, Wally glanced around. The ceiling was lower in here, full of buzzing lights and sound-dampening panels, and in the center squatted a wide honeycomb of shelving. Unlike the cold cement block in their brainstorming space, the walls in this room were insulated with drywall, and it was about fifteen degrees warmer. The far-left wall was lined with mirrors and the floor was padded with mats while the right wall was flanked with file cabinets and an oversized safe with just about every security device imaginable.

“It's just our storage room,” said Changkyun, leaning against one of many storage boxes marked only with eight-digit numbers.

Hannah and Wally studied each boy stationed around the room before they nodded to each other. The exuberant pixie grinned. “Yup, this will do perfectly. You guys arrange this however you want for the exhibition.”

“But it better impress,” Wally warned, “because you've got home field advantage, and if you can't deliver on that, I know you can't deliver in the field.”

“Monsta X always delivers,” Jooheon replied confidently, and Minhyuk added a supportive “Hwaiting!”

Wally hummed unconvinced as Hannah followed her out the storage room door with an eager wave and an easy smile. “See you at nine, boys! Looking forward to it!”

As they disappeared up the stairs, Hyungwon frowned and said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, boss.”

Kihyun waited in the storage room door frame, watching the last of Hannah’s rosy locks fade back into reality, and for the first time since he’d accepted the client’s call, he wondered if he knew anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, this story was heavily researched--like, probably to the point that my mental stability should really be examined. Just go with it like the boys have to, lol. Also, the painter, Shin Yun-Bok is a real artist, but the painting referenced is not; it's just a play on one of his real paintings.

**Author's Note:**

> Trailer and cover art commissioned by the very talented (and my very dear friend) Wonho’s Favorite Ramen. You can find both on my tumblr (under my name) or on her YT channel. All story content hits my tumblr first.


End file.
